More sub survivors unlikely

2 dead, 7 missing after Russian vessel sinks

MOSCOW — Russian authorities abandoned hope Saturday of finding any survivors among seven missing crew members of a nuclear-powered submarine that sank before dawn as it was being towed to a scrap yard.

One survivor was plucked from the Barents Sea soon after the accident, and two bodies were recovered. There is no likelihood of finding more survivors, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said after arriving in Severomorsk, the main base of Russia's Northern Fleet.

"The sub went to the bottom . . . with an open deckhouse," Ivanov said, which meant seawater would have flooded the vessel. "It is impossible to find any of the remaining seven crew members alive."

Adm. Viktor Kravchenko, the Russian navy's chief of staff, had said earlier that the sea was so cold that any crew members who made it out of the sinking vessel could not have survived more than 40 minutes.

"While listening to the hull of the submarine with the rescue vessel's equipment, there were no sounds coming from inside," Kravchenko added.

Officials said there were no weapons aboard the submarine, which was decommissioned in 1989, and they insisted the onboard nuclear reactors presented no safety or environmental risks.

Russia's last major submarine accident was the sinking of the Kursk on Aug. 12, 2000, after a torpedo exploded on board. That disaster, also in the Barents Sea, took the lives of all 118 crew members. Twenty-three of those men survived in the sunken vessel for hours, perhaps longer, waiting in vain for rescue.

While bad weather played a role in Saturday's sinking of submarine K-159, Ivanov placed primary blame on those involved in the towing operation.

The 1960s-era attack submarine was being towed on four pontoons from its base in Gremikha to a dismantling plant in Polarnye, nearly 200 miles to the northwest. The pontoons tore off in a storm, and the submarine sank in 560 feet of water, the Defense Ministry said. It went down about 3 miles off Kildin Island.

Ivanov said he had been informed that "all the imaginable safety rules were broken during the towing," and cited a poor job of fastening the vessels to the pontoons.

Ivanov said Sergei Zhemchuzhny, commander of the submarine unit based in Gremikha, was being relieved of his duties pending an investigation.

"I'm not a judge," he said. "A court will determine who is guilty of the tragedy."

But he added that he supported suspension of the commander.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was on board the Russian missile cruiser Moskva off the coast of Sardinia with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for a summit.

"The tragedy in the Barents Sea once again brings out the fact that seagoing requires discipline, that the sea doesn't forgive mistakes," Putin told the ship's crew.

"There will be a thorough investigation of the wreckage."

At the time of the Kursk tragedy, Putin was on holiday and drew criticism that he did not respond quickly enough to the disaster.

The K-159 is only one-quarter the size of the Kursk, so it is realistic to raise it from the seabed to scrap it properly, Ivanov said.